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One thing that has traveled with me over many moves across more than half a century is my mother's button box.
She would have turned 87 yesterday.
Her veil that she wore on her head to church and my brief attempt to sort into bags were more or less recent additions.
The rest is as I have known it from childhood.
It fascinated me then – to sort through it, marvel at the touch and sight and sound of all those buttons.
To recognize buttons taken from a coat or a dress.
To learn details of history not in my memory.
To search for a button needed for one missing on a garment and find a match.
To search for buttons wanted for a new project and perhaps delight in finding a set or perhaps delight in the challenge to create a new set.
The most special button was always the clear amber one which becomes warm if I hold it.
It is from a button factory that an aunt and uncle had owned. I never saw the factory but the thought of a place that made buttons – and such a beautiful and unusual one - the thought of how it must have been done and what other kinds there were and how were they stored and how were they sold and the thought of many many many people wearing clothing with 'family' buttons on them – overwhelmed me.
This is my present button box. It has changed over the years. I once had jars and jars of buttons. It was fun to collect them across time. Fun – and liberating – to get rid of them in one simplifying.
Perhaps because of – or, in spite of! – the presence of my mother's button box with all its personal history – my button box now reflects a more immediate collection. The old button bag is from some other family but I treasure it muchly.
Mine are sorted into whites and wood and metals and interesting and buttons-to-be.
There is another collection growing of buttons I have made and am making. Buttons can be made out of almost anything!